I don’t know what it is but something is getting under my skin. The most likely subjects are Trinity River Vision, the debt ceiling, aviation museum, and maybe even the font I’ve chosen for this piece of enlightenment.

It just seems like we go from one crisis to another and they all drive me up the wall. As I started this piece I was using Calibri but it just didn’t fit my mood so I went through the entire font list twice before settling on Verdana. The font has to fit your mood. Hack writers will stick with New Times Roman because that’s likely what shows up first in their word processer or that’s what they’re used to. I like a mood match.

As I scanned the web site www.startelegraph.blogspot.com/ I was humored by a photo of Congresswoman Kay Granger holding a T-shirt saying “cover your butt”. She should know, I guess. While she pontificates about property values, her son JD is busy with the TRV Authority getting the Tarrant Regional Water District to relieve some people of their property altogether. It’s all about flood control, of course, but if it wasn’t that she’d say it was in the interest of national defense. You’ve got to get up early to beat a Congresswoman to the draw.

My oldest son, Dr. James W Picht, brilliant economist, linguist, professor, photojournalist, commentary writer for Washington Times Communities, and chip off the old block, (OK, I wasn’t any of those things but I was a damn good pilot and flight instructor) recently wrote in the Times about the debt crisis and who won and who lost the debate. He threw a little fault at the Tea Party and I had to respond (ordinarily I’m in complete accord with Jim even though he is an Aggie ((TX A&M)). Man, I’m sick and tired of the press blaming the Tea Party for anything. If it weren’t for the Tea Party we’d have a debt ceiling increase without any spending cuts of any kind, even fake spending cuts.

Tax reform is certainly an essential element in controlling our fiscal irresponsibility but it comes after getting a hold on spending. A congress that can stop the growth of government and sharply reduce spending can also reform the tax code. For that they would have the support of the Tea Party and we would be on the way to restoring fiscal responsibility and an AAA credit rating.

Democrats have had ample opportunity, with the President, and a majority of both houses of congress for two years, to implement tax reform and fiscal responsibility. They’ve failed on both counts. They haven’t even been able to pass a budget yet they rammed through a health care bill that will further bloat the deficit. Democrats have been key in expanding elligibility and benefits for Social Security, Medicaid, and even veterans’ benefits. They’ve mucked up the tax code and increased the size and intrusiveness of government.

A friend at a Tuesday morning coffee klatch ranted for 6 years about the debt increases under Bush. Now with Obama tripling the national debt in just two years my friend suddenly has a sock in his mouth. The national challenge is not how to balance the budget, it’s how to get Democrats to realize there is a budget problem.

And on to the aviation museum. When I was on the city council, I advocated for saving the B-36, one of four remaining, that had a major role in the Cold War, and placing it in a local museum. Mayor Barr instructed the city manager, Gary Jackson, that “not one nickel” should be “in the budget for the B-36.” An icon of the Cold War and the mayor didn’t want to spend a nickel of taxpayer money to keep it in Fort Worth. What a shame. What a lack of foresight!

Now, years later, after Mayor Mike Moncrief’s task force to create an aviation and space museum has completed the legwork and determined the viability of same, suddenly we can’t raise the money. Say what? The museum consultant (Lord Group) found the potential donors and said it could be done.

So who are the backsliders, the potential donors or the museum board? Aviation has been the biggest mover of our economy, greater than cattle, greater than oil, even greater than prostitution, which flourished into the 90s.